Library characterization extracts the electrical behavior and functional model of every logic gate in a cell library, given the transistor level circuitry and manufacturing process models. Library characterization is nonetheless a very computation intensive process that often requires tens or even hundreds of computers, if not more, running the characterization program in parallel, over a duration of several weeks or even several months to generate a complete set of library that may be used in modern electronic design. Recent design methodologies require even more variants in a cell library in terms of, for example, process, supply voltage, and temperature variations and thus result in even more intensive computations.
Statistical library characterization involves modeling the influence from randomly varying process parameters on the timing models in a standard cell library. Statistical library characterization is normally performed by a finite difference method of simulating the timing sensitivity on each process parameter on each transistor in the cell design and then calculates their total timing effect by computing the square root of the sum of their squares. As cell design complexities increase by a factor of N (e.g., the total number of transistors increases by a factor of N), and the number of process parameters increases by a factor of P, and each simulation (e.g., digital, analog, or mixed signal simulation) time increase super-linearly with N, the performance of statistical library characterization will degrade by a factor of at least N2×P.
Therefore, there exists a need for a method and a system for implementing scalable statistical library characterization for electronic designs without having the aforementioned issues, disadvantages, or problems. The advantages of the various embodiments described herein are numerous. Most notably, the methods and systems described herein provide regular and statistical library characterization to increase the speed and accuracy of the computation of library characterization.